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Many parents with babies who are troubled sleepers figure the baby will outgrow the issue. Some do, but many simply don’t. If your 4 month old is waking up a lot at night, you might think it’s normal. But, when she is 12 months, 18 months or 2 years old and now a toddler, you’re wondering just when she might outgrow this night waking problem or if she will at all.
There are a number of reasons why toddlers wake up at night. This article will outline a few main reasons:
Night Waking by Sleep Association
The same way your 4, 6, or 8 month old can struggle with sleeping all night, so can toddlers, if they don’t know how to get back to sleep without your “help”. I say “help” because all of our good intentions to help our babies and toddlers to sleep sometimes isn’t help at all and it only continues the night-waking longer than necessary. Of course, I don’t fault anyone (actually I do say it’s your fault, here but you know what I mean). I fell into the same trap. I didn’t know how complicated sleep could be until I had my first son!
The place we fall asleep and how we fall asleep is important. If you fall asleep on your bed and wake up at 2am and you’re on the couch, you would be disoriented and wonder how you got there. If you fell asleep on a pillow and you wake up at midnight without your pillow, you might have trouble going back to sleep without looking for it. Very often we become our baby or toddler’s “pillow”. Therefore, it’s important to have good routines that set the stage for sleep, but when it comes down to that moment when your toddler falls asleep, it needs to be in the same environment he will wake up in periodically throughout the night. This is highly related to his personality and temperament. Some children can be rocked to sleep at bedtime and wake up 12 hours later while others will need to be rocked and re-rocked every hour or two. The key is to break the sleep associations if they are a problem.
Teething
Unfortunately, teething night wakings don’t go away for everyone until both the one-year and the two-year molars come in. My first son just had molars one day without too much upheaval, but my second son, wow! His one-year molars took MONTHS to come in. Fortunately, his rough sleep nights were only here and there with his worst being just over a week ago when he was also sick with Roseola. See my article about teething for more information.
Developmental Night Waking
When your baby was less than a year old, you had teething and learning to crawl and all sorts of fun things to keep them awake at night. Well, your toddler may have some night waking due to developmental milestones, too. The biggest one is learning to talk and the language explosion they will have around 18 months old (my sons did not have this until closer to 22 months). Some toddlers could be sensitive to other developmental milestones, but if they don’t have sleep associations, night waking is usually minimal during these.
Nightmares
I wrote a whole series on nightmares and night terrors here, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but nightmares obviously can wake up toddlers. After their imagination starts to really blossom, they become more aware of the world, develop reasoning skills, and start to put together that we are mortal (i.e. we can die), things start to scare them. Also, disruptions or stress at home can cause nightmares too. The main thing to do is try to talk to him during the day about what might be scaring him and also make him feel safe and secure in his room and bed. This nightlight really helped my son feel more comfortable. He didn’t have any nightlight until around 2 or 2 1/2 years old after he transitioned to a toddler bed when we were pregnant with #2. I did have to cover it up 85% with a washcloth because it was too bright. LOL!
All situations are unique and there could be other causes of night wakings, but these are the main reasons. Typically, once they are toddlers, they don’t need any feedings in most cases. If you need help on dealing with your toddler night waking, I encourage you to get our free guide, Toddler Sleep Secrets, or consider purchasing our comprehensive e-Book on toddler sleep, The 5-Step System to Better Toddler Sleep. You can also contact me. I’d love to help!
How is your toddler sleeping?
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kristina says
Our 19 month old girl was sleeping fine until 4 molars came in at pretty much the same time (span of two months). She was up for two hours every night THANKFULLY not crying, just up. Now those teeth are in and she is still up a couple times a week for 2 hours just either talking or rolling around. I’m not understanding why there is a continued problem. Has she just fell into a habit of waking up for 2 months while the teeth were coming in? Is she overtired?I would love some advice. Thank you.
Kelly says
My 2 1/2 year old has recently gone through some changes at home and I’m sure thats what has him waking up ALL night long but I don’t know how to fix it. Four weeks ago we moved into a new house, that same day I had to fly out of state for a week because of a death in the family. My husband and son moved into the house while I was gone and my son has not slept through the night since. It was such a crazy emotional time that I didn’t think about exactly how much that would effect him. He has slept 10 to 12 hours a night since he was 3 months old so this becoming a problem was never a thought in our mind. The last four weeks he has gone to sleep between 8:30 – 9 pm and has woken every night around midnight then runs to our room looking for me and screams and cries his heart out until I either let him sleep with us or I go sleep on the couch with him. I do try to put him back in his bed every time, I even sit there till he falls asleep but as soon as I try to leave he’s histerical again. How can I break this?
Kimberly says
@Sarah- With toddlers, it’s really about setting limits. It might take a few nights, but if he’s getting out of bed, it’s best just to walk him back to bed and tell him it’s night time and time to sleep in his own bed. The less interaction the better. If he’s calling out and not getting out of his bed, don’t get him out of bed. Just reassure him quickly and then leave again telling him it’s time to sleep. If there have been any major changes in his life, take that into consideration but give him his reassurances during day and talk to him about nighttime being for sleep.
@Kelly, Here it might do well to implement some sort of reward or sticker chart where for every night he sleeps in his own bed or goes back to sleep after waking that he gets a sticker in the morning. After getting a certain number of stickers, then he gets a “reward.” The reward is whatever you come up with that you think will be meaningful with him. It doesn’t have to be a toy. It could be a special meal out with mom and dad or some other activity. It will be important though to give him plenty of reassurance during the day either about his new home or that mommy and daddy aren’t leaving (whatever you think might be the issue for him right now related to what’s been going on). Then at night as I mentioned above with Sarah, you need to not give in to him and let him sleep with you and just quietly taking him back to bed. Every time you give in then you send the message that if he cries hard enough, he will get what he wants. It’s not about not meeting his emotional needs, you can still do that (more during the day if possible) and then to a lesser extent at night. Consistency will be key here.
@Kristina- It probably has become more of a habit for her at this point. It’s hard to say if she’s over tired or not since you don’t mention her daytime nap schedule or what time she’s going to bed. If she’s not crying, then it would be best to just let her be and allow her to fall back asleep on her own. If you go in there, then she’ll probably just be awake more.
Also, all of you may be interested in signing up for Nicole’s upcoming Free Toddler Sleep information sessions where she will cover toddler sleep and some of the common Toddler Sleep transitions. You can sign up for it here: https://www.babysleepsite.com/announcements/free-toddler-sleep-information-sessions/
sarah says
my two year old has been waking at 3am for the past 2 months, he wakes up gets out of his bed and calls for me or daddy. if we dont respond he starts to cry and then when we do get up he wont go back in his own bed, throws himself on the floor screaming. Any ideas?? all would be received gratefully as working full time on no sleep is not good!!
Julie says
Hello, my 20 month old has always been a night waker. I am baffled as the cause and very tired! She goes to sleep on her own, we put her in her crib and shut the door and she falls asleep on her own with no problem. Same with nap time. She only takes 1 nap a day. But she wakes up at night at least 2-3 times a week. We are on the 4th night in a row right now. She wakes up crying, and tonight I tried to let her cry it out, but finally got her up after 2 hours of crying, with me periodically going in to reassure her. She had reflux as a tiny baby but seems to have outgrown it, so I don’t think that is the problem. I am so tired and just do not know why she has always been like this! When I get her up, I try not to reward her too much, she sits with me on the couch, plays a little and then in 2 hours or so I put her back to bed and she sleeps! Do you have any suggestions for me?
Kimberly says
Hi Julie,
First, I would stop getting her out of bed at night at all. This just reinforces with her that waking at night to get up is okay. There are a couple of things to try, the first would be to read this post by Nicole on setting limits with your toddler- https://www.babysleepsite.com/toddlers/limit-setting-toddler/. Try some of these techniques to let her know that nighttime is for sleeping for everyone in the house. You might also try leaving the door open to see if that relieves some of her anxiety at night. Also, if you don’t have a night light, I would recommend getting one. There’s a great one out there called Good Nite Light which has a sun and moon for helping kids learn that when the moon is on, then we sleep and we don’t get up or wake up until the sun light comes on. I would continue to reinforce this with her, that night is for sleeping.
Ansel says
Thanks Kimberley. I will try that; although things have improved a little, but he should ideally be sleeping in his own cot all night now. x
Kimberly says
@ Ansel- Part of the problem maybe in bringing him into bed at his first waking. I would recommend helping him to get back to sleep in his own bed, either by patting and shushing. It may take a few days for sure or even a week, but it will be worth it in long run. He’s becoming dependent on sleeping with you. You might also try a white noise machine in his room or near his cot.
@ Carrie- I agree, she does need more than 4 hours of sleep. Have you talked this over with your doctor or perhaps considered seeing a sleep specialist. It could be there’s more going on here with her physically than just a toddler sleep issue.
Carrie says
Oh and when she does wake up you can’t talk to her or look at her she is a very bad waker upper, she screams and yells and throws things, she needs 30 minutes or so to wake up and get her senses going. Very strange to us!!!!!!!
Carrie says
O,h also we just had her adenoid removed and the Doctor said she would sleep better, but its been a month and no change in her sleep pattern at all.
Carrie says
My daughter is 4 she was a preemie, and I mean a real preemie,born @27 weeks, she has never been a good sleeper but for the past year or so, she isn’t sleeping for more than 4-6 hours total in a 24 hour period. We have a set scheduale and we all go to bed at 8pm everynight, weekends are 9pm. she passes out in less than 3 minutes but then wakes up at midnight, and is up from then on. She doesn’t nap during the day. We have tried to put her to bed later, like 9 or 10 pm, but she still wakes up at the same time every morning. My husband and I are so tired. She just doesn’t seem to need more than a few hours of sleep, my husband says she is fine, and I disagree. She is 4 and 4 year old need more sleep that 4 hours a night. Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Ansel says
Hi, my 11 month old son has begun waking 5 or 6 times in the night. He sleeps in his own cot (no trouble getting him to sleep), and then around 1am he wakes and comes into our bed.
He then wakes 5 or 6 times, and at the moment w either put the hairdryer on to send him to sleep, or if it’s around 3am I will feed him.
It’s becoming so draining, as he’s been waking like this for the past 5 weeks.
Does anyone have any ideas what we could do? I don’t fancy leaving him to cry it out at that time of the night, I’m guessing it’ll only wake him up even more. I did wonder if it was our snoring that is waking him 🙂 x